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I recently retired my M-Audio FireWire 410 (drivers not updated since inMusic bought them from Avid in 2012), and replaced it with a 3rd gen Scarlett 2i2. Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen performing flawlessly on Win 10!

I think that is the same reason I picked up EZKeys as a BF deal. I also picked up Scaler a while back. I want to spend some time learning to use them to manipulate MIDI in a more productive way. But as far as ST4 sounds go, I am quite impressed with the ST4 C7 Grand Classical. I imported a couple of solo MIDI piano scores and they sounded great on that piano!

I got that one for $99. 😁

Udemy frequently offers many discounted $9.99 courses. Any music courses by Jason Allen PhD are excellent. Jason is qualified to teach music as he is a composer, producer, songwriter, engineer, sound designer, DJ, remix artist, multi-media artist, performer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He teaches at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN, where he runs the Music, Media, and Management program. https://www.udemy.com/user/janthonyallen/ His courses on Udemy include Music Theory Comprehensive, Mixing Masterclass, Composition and Film Scoring, Ultimate Ableton Live, Drum Programming Masterclass, etc.

I got those two as the BF specials for MIDI at Toontrack as well at $10 each, as well as Americana EZX for $20. Also grabbed EZKeys Upright Piano for $39, along with Americana and Piano Pop EZKeys MIDI for $10 each.

Waveform Pro Basic will get you a drum sampler and a multi-sampler (they are tied to Waveform), as well as the Collective synth (not tied to Waveform). List of content for each edition here: https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-pro-content

The aesthetics could definitely use a facelift! But the functionality has been much improved!

You really do need to watch the video all the way to the end to realize the full capabilities of this tool. At first I thought, well all that could be done with a few simple arpeggiators ... but then ... look out!

I felt the same way about the ST3 UI. The new ST4 UI is a breath of fresh air by comparison. I agree that there could still be improvements, but it's much easier to work with now! Especially with the scalable UI.

I would be very surprised to find an average user that comes here looking for a free DAW that has otherwise extensive/demanding (read expensive) requirements for orchestral instruments libraries The more pedestrian sample libraries probably suit the average hobbyist, home recordist, or songwriter just fine. In fact if you are doing paid work your client would probably be much more happy with a live recorded orchestra, than with a Kontakt sample library. Cheers! 😉

Cakewalk MIDI Basics

The only thing I would ask is that Cakewalk please stop scanning all Waves shells completely at startup after adding just a single Waves plugin. Cakewalk starts up OK, but the plug-in scan continues for an extended time after start up. Running Cakewalk 2020-11 (Build 099). I realize how the Waves Shell obfuscates changes with individual plug-ins, but other DAWs don't seem to have this issue to the same extent.

If a streaming service accepts a lossless format such as FLAC, and is going to transcode whatever you upload anyway, you might as well send them the highest resolution file that they will accept, rather than MP3 (lossy). Imagine that the rules for peaks might vary with different file formats, so running a few test uploads/transcodes with the chosen service is probably a good idea to judge the end results.

You can easily switch the ST4 browser back to "Folder" view by instrument, similar to the default ST3 view. Agree that the ST4 default "Category" view is confusing...